The Big Sleep
by who is sabrina
Summary: The instant the ankle monitor comes off, Scott thinks of Cassie. His body thinks otherwise. Set near the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Disclaimer: I don't own Ant-Man.
1. Part I

The last of Woo's men shut the door behind him with a dull _clunk_. The sputter of starting engines. The increasingly distant rumble of the retreating FBI vehicles. And then, suddenly and surprisingly, silence. The absence of the familiar weight of the ankle monitor and the very final departure of Woo and his men left Scott with an almost eerie sense of lightness. He thought, inexplicably, of floating adrift in the quantum realm. Colors and shapes forever folding into incomprehensible patterns. He blinked.

Descending down the last of the stairs, Scott stopped at the doorway and was struck by the thought that this was not untethered lightness, but freedom. He could walk out that door any time he wished. He could do anything (legal) he pleased. He could see Cassie any moment he wanted. A smile spread itself across his face at the thought of his daughter. The sound of a video call made him look down. His phone was in his hand, the screen indicating that he was currently calling Cassie. He frowned slightly. When had he done that?

"Daddy!" Cassie exclaimed immediately, her shining face appearing on his screen, and like that, any and all of Scott's concerns were forgotten.

"Hi, Peanut! Guess what?"

"What?"

"Ta-da!" Scott sung, sweeping his phone down to give her a view of his monitor-free ankle. She shrieked delightedly.

"Is that Daddy?" asked Maggie's voice.

"Hey, you're free!" Paxton chimed in. Scott lifted the phone to see that his ex-wife and her husband had joined Cassie, grinning back at him with unbridled excitement. "Nice going, buddy!"

"Thanks!"

"Scott, what's the first thing you're going to do?" Maggie asked him.

"Uh, I'm gonna go down to the grocery store and pick up some milk."

"Dad!" Cassie protested immediately.

"Just kidding, peanut," he laughed. "I want to see you. In person."

"Well, come over whenever you'd like!" Maggie offered. "Do you want to-"

 _Daddy, where are you?_ Cassie's echoing voice intruded upon his consciousness with all the force of one of Hope's knock-out punches, and he was plunged into utter darkness and silence. _Daddy, where are you?_

"-answer us _now_. Scott!"

"Daddy, please!" Cassie's distraught pleading cut through the silence, pulling other sounds with it. Scott blinked, bewildered, and the world faded back in from nothingness. He was staring up at the ceiling, frantic voices floating over to him from a few inches away. He sat up slowly, taken aback to find himself sprawled across the hardwood floor.

 _"Daddy!"_ Cassie shouted.

"Scott, we're coming over there right now," Paxton declared.

"No, no!" Scott spoke finally. There was momentary silence on the other end. "I'm- I'm okay," he placated. "I just-" _Just what?_ He realized he didn't know what he was going to say. He abandoned the sentence and crawled over to where the phone had fallen, thankfully unharmed and helpfully face up. "Hi," he greeted sheepishly, grinning down at them all in what he hoped was a reassuring expression. He was alarmed to find that Cassie looked pale and shaken, Maggie was in the middle of shoving items into Cassie's backpack, and Paxton was studying him carefully, car keys in his hands. Scott swallowed. "Uh, sorry."

 _"Sorry?"_ Maggie screeched, digging her nails into Paxton's arm in what looked like a particularly painful expression of concern. The cop ignored this, remaining characteristically calm and collected, focused on Scott.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "What happened?"

"I'm fine, I'm great," Scott assured them quickly, while his stomach tied itself in knots at the scared look on Cassie's face. He looked directly at her, took a breath. "Peanut, I'm okay. Yeah?"

"Yeah," she breathed, starting to look a little relieved. Behind her, the adults exchanged disbelieving glances.

"Scott, if you need us to swing by-"

"No, no," he argued quickly, stopping Maggie before she could finish. He shook his head vehemently to illustrate his point, and then stopped quickly; the world was spinning worse than the teacups at Disneyland. He squeezed his eyes shut. The darkness was blissful, but then those three voices were calling his name again, and he opened his eyes once more. Cassie's brows were knit together tightly, her intelligent eyes watching him with disconcerting attention. Paxton still held the car keys. He was on the point of reassuring them, yet again, that he was okay, but he was sure even Cassie would call him out on the lie.

"I'm sorry," he said guiltily, wishing he hadn't called them in the first place. The last thing he had wanted was to make Cassie upset. "I'm just tired." _Aha, that was exactly it! Tired._ As soon as he thought the word, he recognized it for what it was. Complete and total exhaustion weighed down on him oppressively, threatening to snatch his awareness away again at any second. All of the running, all of the fighting, his brief stint as a giant - it all caught up to him at once, dragging him relentlessly towards inexorable, blissful unconsciousness. "Really, really tired," he managed. He hoped he wasn't slurring like he suspected he might be.

"Then get some rest," Maggie ordered him gently. Scott noted distantly that she had put a comforting arm around Cassie.

"We'll come by to check up on you," Paxton informed him, his authoritative tone leaving no room for argument - not that Scott had the energy to argue anyway. "Don't even try to stay awake for us, okay, buddy? We're just gonna stop by and make sure you're alright."

"Gonna be boring," Scott protested semi-coherently. "Just sleeping."

"That's alright," Maggie assured him quickly. "We're not coming for fun. We'll do that another day. Right, Cassie?" Their daughter's gaze never wavered from Scott's face.

"Right," she said determinedly. 'Feel better, Daddy." Scott smiled, or at least tried to; he couldn't be sure with the odd vignette that had started intruding on his vision. Not wanting to pass out again while on the phone with his already worried daughter, Scott hurried to wrap up the call before he faded out completely.

"Love you, Peanut. See you guys!" He grinned at them sleepily and then mumbled what he had hoped was "goodbye" but might have actually been "good night," and then shoved his finger into the end call button on the screen. He briefly flirted with the notion of getting up and moving over to the couch, but found he lacked the ability to move at all. He laid his head directly on the floor, uncaring, and then let himself drift finally to sleep.


	2. Part II

"And I put the key into the door handle, and I was like, 'Aw, man, I can't wait to see Scotty! He's gonna be so happy about getting out of house arrest!' And then I opened the door and I was like, 'Wazzup!', and Scotty was just, like, lying there."

Luis stopped abruptly, his oddly frantic tone ending in an expectant silence. Hope pressed the phone into her ear, using her other hand to block out the mechanic sounds of the lab. She turned away slightly, watching her dad glance over at her curiously. Hope sighed internally, trying to decipher Luis' disjointed story, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she finally spoke up.

"What?" she asked.

"He was just lying there, on the floor!" Luis clarified hurriedly. "And his phone was on the floor with him, too, like he was trying to call somebody or something, I don't know. And I was like, 'Scottty, bro, are you okay?!' and he didn't do anything!" Hope frowned.

"Luis, are you telling me Scott's unconscious?" she asked. Hank, having overheard, looked at her sharply, the lines on his forehead etching themselves a little deeper.

"Yes!" Luis confirmed, and Hope's heart dropped. "So I was like, 'Don't worry, man, I'm gonna call Dr. Pym right now!' And so I called you." Hope bit her lip, then realized Luis was waiting for instructions from her.

"Luis, did you check his pulse?" she asked him, taking care to be clear, calm, and direct. At this, Hank abandoned his work and walked over to where she was standing, wordlessly asking for an update.

"Yes, ma'am, I did, and it's normal," Luis reported. Hope closed her eyes briefly, relief flooding through her.

"Okay, then, do you see any injuries?" she continued.

"Nothing big," Luis answered. "Just like bruises and cuts and stuff, you know, like from fighting? He always has little injuries like that, you know, and I say, 'Scotty, you-'"

"Focus, Luis!" Hope interrupted quickly, fearing one of his trademark long-winded tangents.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" He apologized immediately. She could hear the guilt and the tension in his voice. "What should I do now?"

"You've tried waking him up? And he won't respond?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, ' _SCOTTY! WAKE UP, BRO!'_ " Hope pulled the phone away from her ear, cringing. "And he was like-"

"Wuzgoinon?" slurred a familiar voice in the background. There was a loud gasp and a clatter as Luis apparently dropped the phone in favor of attending to his friend, and Hope used the moment to breath an audible sigh of relief. She placed her hand lightly over the phone. "I just heard him," she informed Hank quietly. "He's awake. I think he's okay." Her dad nodded at her, evidently much relieved, and returned to his work. Hope smiled slightly. If Scott only knew…

She took her hand off her phone and pressed it to her ear once more, trying to catch bits and pieces of the distant conversation between Luis and Scott. She couldn't hear much, but she noted that it sounded a lot less like a conversation, and a lot more like a high-speed interrogation with mumbled, incoherent responses.

'Sure, sure, sure," she heard Luis say, suddenly louder, and then he apparently returned to the phone. "Sorry I dropped you," he said. "I mean, not _you_ you, but, like, you on the phone." She waited patiently for him to get to the point. "Scotty wants to talk to you." There was a shuffling sound as the phone changed hands, and Hope held her breath, suddenly and inexplicably anxious.

"Scott?"

"Hey," he said lightly. She could hear the grin in his voice. It was the same lightheaded, breathless, feeble voice he had used at the pier, gazing up at her through half-lidded eyes and semi-consciousness. She laughed, her vision blurring slightly as her eyes watered.

"Are you okay?" she asked, not caring if her voice sounded a little tight.

"Yeah," he responded, slow and measured. "Tryna sleep but Luis was freaked. Sorry to bother you."

"Well, how was I supposed to know you were just sleeping? You were out like a light, bro. And why would you sleep on the floor?" Luis' indignant shouting was clearly audible through the phone.

"Because I was too tired to make it to the couch, okay?"

" _Shoot!_ That's not okay, man! What's the matter with you?"

"How about we get you on the run from the FBI, put you in the suit, grow you to a gigantic size, and then see if you can make it to the couch?"

"Okay, okay. Sorry, man. I didn't mean to get all agitated, you know? I was just worried, you know? I come in and see you lying on the floor, and I just-"

"Luis, Luis!" Scott interrupted. "It's fine. Okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." There was silence for a few minutes.

"Scott?" Hope ventured.

"Hope!" he exclaimed. He seemed to have forgotten she was on the phone. She wasn't surprised.

"Sorry we woke you up. Just get some rest, alright? Call us if you need anything. Although I expect I won't be hearing from you for at least three days."

"Might be more like five," he managed eventually.

"Goodbye, Scott," she smiled. There was silence on the other end. Shuffling.

"He fell asleep again," Luis explained. "I'm gonna move him to the couch now. Thanks, and, uh, sorry for bothering you."

"It wasn't a bother, Luis. Thanks for calling." She hung up, walked back over to her dad.

"Is he okay?" Hank asked, studying an intricate tangle of wires.

"He's fine."

"Good." There was a beat of silence, and then he looked up at her sharply. "Don't tell him I said that." Hope laughed quietly.

"I won't," she promised. But somehow she thought Scott already knew.


End file.
